330 HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE 



Frontin, Little Duck, Seigneur II., Lapin, Eoi-Fou, Jupin, 

 Aida II., Viennois, Sourire, &c. Never before had any- 

 body (not even Count de Lagrange) done so much in 

 so short a time : tliree years in succession he had stood 

 at the head of French winning owners, and at the time 

 of his death his stable had won in stakes over 1,500,000 

 francs, which looks enormous in that form, but is not 

 so imposing in the shape of 60,000/., though even that 

 is something more than respectable. For him M. 

 Malapert bought — as his first two purchases — Frolic- 

 some and Light Drum (who already had Frontin and 

 Tittle Duck concealed about their persons, respectively) ; 

 and at the time of Lord Falmouth's famous sale he 

 went over to Newmarket, where he by private arrange- 

 ment gave 175,000 francs (7,000/.), it is said, for Silvio 

 (whose progeny, as we have partly seen, have been doing 

 wonderfully well). At Saint-Georges his energy made 

 a fine 'haras' out of a wilderness, and forty brood- 

 mares were soon in clover there ; whilst at Avermes he 

 had at his decease more than sixty horses in training, 

 under the care of one of the many Messrs. Carter. 



But, successful as the Duke de Castries was, he was 

 not altogether lucky. For instance, in the summer of 

 1883 he lost six yearlings in a very extraordinary 

 fashion during a storm. The stud-groom had been 

 serving out the oats to the youngsters, standing by twos 

 in each box, an iron-lined manger running from end to 

 end of the whole building, and supplying all the boxes. 

 When he reached the last box, having served out the 

 oats, he was all of a sudden thrown down underneath a 

 colt which fell — struck with lightning^ — atop of him, 

 and which he discovered (when he got the better of his 

 natural fright) to be stone-dead, whilst his stable-com- 

 panion was safe and sound. And, strange to say, it was 



